


Little Bombs Painted Blue

by Bibliomania



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Bullying, Childhood, Fluff, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 03:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17521409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliomania/pseuds/Bibliomania
Summary: Anyone ever notice that Rumble is the only blue yordle?Ziggs sure did.





	Little Bombs Painted Blue

**Author's Note:**

> A little drabble that was meant to be part of something much bigger.

  
  
Growing up, Rumble was far from the most popular yordle. So far, in fact, that whenever he interacted with kids his age, it always seemed to follow the same pattern:

“Hey, guys! Can I-”

 “No.”

And he would stand there, slowly lowering the hand raised in greeting, watching his peers run off to play their games.

He was unlucky; it was what his mom told him. All young yordles wanted to be scouts – little forest explorers who ventured into the unknown recesses of Bandle Forest, searching for challenges to conquer, monsters to slay, and games to play. Every day after school they would dart off into the trees, chasing each other in excited laughter over logs, across brooks, and around boulders. Each and every one brimming with ambition to become a proper, elusive, deadly scout.

But he was born blue. And scrawny.

If he hadn’t been blue, instead the shades of brown, black, or tan of his peers, perhaps even green or orange, he could hide between the trees like a proper scout. If he hadn’t been scrawny, able to face the physical challenges of scout-ship, to keep up with his peers, then being blue wouldn’t matter.

So as he watched kids have fun, sprinting off into the woods to play tag, explore, or hunt small game, the word ‘unlucky’ held a sour taste in his mouth. Sometimes, when he insisted on playing, he would give it everything he had only to collapse on the forest floor, guzzling down air, while his peers looked on having hardly broken a sweat.

And, if anyone could be cruel, it was children. He was different. He was weak. He was different. Indifference turned to annoyance to animosity to hatred, all until it reached a point where even tagging along behind them could lead to a punch in the gut and vicious slurs. To this day, Rumble didn’t feel right in groups.

“Go away, Rumble. You’re no good.” Sometimes, he couldn’t help but agree.

At least until someone suggested otherwise.

It had been months into another school year, well into the autumn season. The leaves had dried into a spectrum of oranges, reds, and yellows, a stiff breeze could result in a colorful shower. The temperature continued to drop each day, lower and lower to the point where, despite having bodies coated in fur, yordles could feel pricks of cold brush against their cheeks. Though considered rude, male yordles would often lick their noses, offering momentary warmth for the catlike feature.

And again, like the innumerable days beforehand, Rumble sat alone behind the school building, perched on the steps leading to the yard and the forest beyond, listening to the woops and hollers of the young yordles playing within.

He had given up. The scarf around his neck, long on him but short on others, was a deep crimson, far darker than the falling leaves and useless for stealth. As were his mittens, his coat, pants…what was the point? He wasn’t playing anyway,

Rumble stared into the gaps of the trees, catching fleeting glimpses of young yordles as the rushed along the trails. His amber eyes, eyes that always stood out among the greenery, tried their hardest to picture a blue yordle among them, running just as fast and playing just as well.

They couldn’t do it.

Rumble sighed, then curled up on the stair and tucked his legs in, resting his chin between his knees. It was cold, and if he was going to sit here along, might as well be warm as possible.

So then why did his chest still feel so cold?

The door atop the steps opened behind him, creaking on hinges no one ever bothered to oil. Rumble’s ear gave a little twitch, but he didn’t bother to turn around. This late after school, it was either a detention kid coming out to play or a teacher coming out to confirm that none of their students had broken their neck.

Rumble refused to look, even as the person hadn’t walked past him, their clothes shuffling as they took a seat beside him.

“Hey.”

In the forest, a group gathered around a fallen log, aimed into the open air from its perch on a stump. They all laughed, roughing each other up as they fought to be king of the hill.

“Heyoo,” a little louder.

Two reached the very top, hands locked together as each forced the other to concede. A third one climbing up from the side, his ankle locked in the grip of a stubborn competitor.

“Hey, dude.”

The smaller of the top contenders lost his footing, dangling off the log as his opponent –

“Hey.”

He fell from the log, but the victor wasn’t yet king as another rival–

“Hey.”

And then the king was tacked off –

“Hey.”

The rest swarmed around –

“Hey. Hey! …HeyHeyHeyHeyHeyHey-”

Rumble buried his face against his knees, hardy holding off tears. “What do you want?”

Beside him, the yordle quickly stopped their jabber, perhaps hearing the misery in Rumble’s voice. Then, after what felt like forever, Rumble flinched at the sound of unwrapping plastic. “You wanna candy?”

Rumble froze, then slowly, ever so slowly, lifted his head to the stranger. He was faced with a yordle with fur colored a soft caramel, rich and shaggy across every visible patch of skin. The yordle’s eyes, a light and eccentrically green pair, stared right at Rumble, not through him as so many peers had done. But, most pressingly, in his outstretched arm was a bag of candy. The stranger, whose face held the most gentle, genuine smile Rumble had ever received, was handing him candy.

The stranger, ignoring Rumble’s hesitance, scooted closer and dumped the bag between them; the various colored wrappers bounced and sprawled across the step. “You gotta try these,” he exclaimed. “They’re called ZortZ and they’re really fun; they got sodium bicarbonate and acid in em’ so they’ll fizz n’ blow up in your mouth.” He set out picking out one of every color, adding each to a pile meant for Rumble. “So we got apple, cherry, grape, orange, grape, watermelon-”

“Why are you here?”

The yordle paused, looking up to Rumble. “Huh? Whaddya mean?”

Rumble stared down at the caramel yordle. Though he tried to hide it with his scarf, there was no mistaking his eyes were watery. His could hardly focus, and who could blame him? Obviously this yordle was mistaken, seeing Rumble as something other than a lackluster failure, or he was being taunted with the idea of companionship. He realized, of course, that offering sweets was hardly a sign of friendship, hardly even interest. It was just…the most positive attention he had received in a long time.

How pathetic. He couldn’t deal with that.

“Why are you here…with me.” He tilted his head, gesturing to the rowdy boys in the forest. “Why me when you could be with them?”

And then the brown yordle laughed - a hardy, deep laugh that Rumble only seemed to hear from his peers when they didn’t know he was around. “Those idiots are jerks!” he laughed. “Dumbasses, every one of em’.”

The stranger gathered the candy he assembled for Rumble, pouring it into his lap. “Sides, they’re playing scouts,” he mentioned offhandedly.

This confused Rumble. Why would a yordle like him not want to play scouts? The stranger was the perfect shade for blending in, light enough to blend in among the dirt, yet rich enough to not get a second glance while sticking out beside a tree. And his physique, while a bit stout, was far better than Rumble’s own scraggy frame.

Out in the woods, a yordle screamed “Scatter!” At once, all of the visible yordles disappeared among the foliage.

“I mean, seriously? Who would wanna fade into the background? Teachers keep saying ‘young man, go play with the other boys,’ but why would I wanna do that?” he asked, tossing a candy in his mouth.

Rumble listened as the stranger spat over his dream, his own candy forgotten.

“People keep saying I’d be good at it, but who the hell wouldn’t wanna be seen!” he jumped to his feet, pointing a finger to the sky above. “I wanna be explosive! All eyes on me! I’m gonna make a boom!”

Rumble, who already lacked a good number of social skills, was lost on how to respond to such a declaration. His amber eyes, catlike and opened wide, took in the posing yordle.

Said stranger held the pose for a few moments longer, then sheepishly crouched down and scratched at the back of his head, never once losing that kind smile. “Hehehe, sorry if I’m kinda weird.”

“No-no-no,” Rumble rushed to interject. “Everyone wants to stand out. That’s totally normal.”

The stranger sighed, sitting back down on the step and unwrapping another candy. Rumble copied him, opening the package to a red hard candy. He inspected it closely, though nothing about it seemed particularly ‘explosive.’ Shrugging he tossed it in his mouth.

Regret was instantaneous. The moment his teeth crunched down on the candy, a powder spilled from either half onto his tongue, fizzing and popping until he gagged and spat a clump of the fizz onto his own lap. “Bleh,” he gagged, furiously wiping at the mess.

Beside him, the stranger laughed like mad. “Hahahah, I told ya! First the pop, then the fizz.”

For a moment, Rumble gave the stranger the darkest glare he could, one often reserved for mirrors, but found he couldn’t keep it up against the yordle holding his sides and rolling with laughter. It felt unnatural, but the corners of his mouth twitched into a smile, small and hesitant and fragile.

“You’re a handful.”

He sat up, grinning wide and pointing at Rumble. “Haha! Dude, that’s crazy. Like, three teachers told me that today.”

Rumble tilted his head, perking an ear. “What? Why? What did you do?”

He laughed, suddenly nervous. “Well, you see there, um, some circumstances came in ta play,” he fidgeted, refusing eye contact, “and this led ta that and that led ta somethin’ else….an’ now there’s a hole in the roof.”

Rumble listened with a perked ear, deliberately smashing a candy on the ground to get at the shards, leaving the devious powder behind. “A hole?” he questioned. “How big are we talking?”

The stranger’s smile wavered. He scratched at a cheek and kept his gaze pointed away from Rumble’s own. “Hehe, well…ah… I might not be commin’ ta school for a few days.”

“Really?” Rumble asked, crunching on the sugary shards. “That bad? Then why are you here now?”

In response, the stranger raised the candy bag, rattling the sweets inside, “Forgot these in my locker.” Then he leaned in, whispering in a ghostly voice, “I was never here.”

“You’re secret’s safe with me,” Rumble promised.

Off by the woods, the playing yordles came into view. Laughing and tackling each other into piles of fallen leaves, fur caked in dirt and spiked in odd places. The stranger stood and stretched, cracking his spine. “Well, this was fun. Same time tomorrow? If I’m here?”

Rumble swallowed his candy, glancing for an instant at his rowdy peers, then allowing his gaze to fall into his lap. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I’m not plenty fun.”

The stranger took a step towards him, Rumble flinched as he raised his hand, curling into himself as the outstretched limb came closer and closer.

_Stay away, idiot!_

_You made us lose!_

_You’re shit, Rumble!_

Their words pounded at his brain, allowing no piece. Again and again, degrading him. Defining him. He was garbage, he was scum, and this kid knew it too. This was all a trick, another cruel joke, it was –

“Sure buddy,” the stranger patted Rumble’s head, rustling the blue fur into a spiky mess. “You seem nice.” He jumped down the step two at a time, walking through the leaves and around the school. “Later, dude!” He called back.

“I uh, I -,” Rumble fumbled, “tomorrow!”

Once he was sure the stranger was gone. Rumble screamed into his scarf, sure that he had botched his first potential friendship.

The biggest surprise in Rumble’s life, as he could attest, was when the stranger showed up again the next day, a smile bright enough to outshine the sun.

It was a bigger surprise when he appeared before Rumble the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, long throughout their school years and beyond.

Every day, warm smile on his face.

And even now, years and years later, Rumble happily remembered the day he met Ziggs.

**Author's Note:**

> Art by Ren Locke, a purveyor of fluff :3  
> Check him out at:  
> Sfw art: https://twitter.com/RenXIV/media   
> Nsfw art: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/fwuffyfurry/


End file.
